Tis the Season

To begin, if any of you are looking to help a perfect stranger this Holiday season, check out WANA. I've participated several years, and even little things can make such a difference. If you'd like to keep your money local, but want to make a difference in a child's life, consider either of the options below. When there is so much hate and violence in the world, it makes it even more important to remember and support and share love and goodness.

Gift of Literacy and The Christmas Store

We had a very busy weekend with our company Christmas party, pancakes with Santa, a bridal shower, a dinner party, and Christmas card pictures! Tonight is the town Christmas parade! It's been fun, but I am looking forward to some down time with my family soon. I am bound and determined to make cinnamon rolls for friends and neighbors again this year, and I'm excited to have Sullivan's help again. We'll of course be making sugar cookies and/or gingerbread men. Ahhh, the holidays!

Behind as always

This cutie has less than a month until her 2nd birthday and she used the potty several times last weekend! Where has my tiny baby gone? She is speaking in sentences, singing Christmas songs, and exerting her independence as often as possible. She loves to say, "I'ma do it". She wants to pick out her own "baby (s)poon", her shoes, her clothes, etc. She wants to climb in to her crib and on top of her changing table. She wants to dress and undress herself. The list goes on and on.

She had gumbo for the first time recently and LOVED it. Not afraid to try anything. Eats yogurt or oatmeal most mornings for first breakfast. A granola bar typically follows later.

She and her brother are typical siblings. Arguing over books and toys one minute, playing or reading sweetly together the next. He loves to get her out of her bed and to teach her new things. This week he taught her how to turn on the Christmas tree, so that's the first thing she wants to do each morning and when we get home in the evening.

Sullivan has been doing well. He's reading so well and doing great with his math. He's a worrier like his Mom and is already stressing out about 1st grade. I've got to set a better example in regard to stress and new things and hard work! He wants to stay in Kindergarten forever, and I can't say I blame him! I'm definitely still unsettled about whether this current school is the right place for us, but can't do much about at the moment anyway.

We had his 6th birthday at the Arcade. It was chaotic, but quick and easy for me. Hard to believe he is already 6! We've been going through his toys to make donations since he was inundated with more "stuff". Having birthday and Christmas so close makes for gift overload in my book. Poor Evie will have it even worse.

Evie - 21 months

rocking her boots

This sweetie is 21 months old! She has mastered the arms crossed, lip out, cold shoulder pout! Considering she wants to read Pout Pout Fish every night and that she lives with the master of pouting (Sullivan, not me :), it was only a matter of time! About 20 seconds after this picture, she got mad because Daniel rolled up her window and I wouldn't give her my phone.

morning routines

Evie stayed at home with her Bebe (my mom) recently as the three of us traveled to Charlotte for Daniel's youngest brother's wedding. She did great, but I think my Mom was worn out! I took this trip and my 3 nights away as an opportunity to get Evie fully weaned. We seem to have been successful, although I definitely am a little sad about it as well. We had a rough night of Evie in the bed Tuesday night and she did NOT understand why she couldn't nurse to go back to sleep. Bittersweet. (update, one regression, but still....)

It was Sullivan's first time to fly and he loved it except for the ears popping part. The plane in the picture below got my purse pulled out of the security line and emptied on our flight back home. That's what I get for hauling his toys in my purse!

 It was a fun and exhausting weekend as evidenced by the pictures below taken on Thursday and Saturday night.

The kids got to attend their first Ole Miss game of the season thanks to some very generous friends! It was Evie's first game ever and she kept wanting to "hut" the "beawr" (hug the bear). They had a great time, but were worn out by the end of the game!

My friend Lisa talked me in to a last minute trip to Southaven for an Alt-j concert. The rain quit right as they started playing, and it was a great show. So glad I put on my big girl panties, had a cup of coffee and broke out of routine!

Evie- 20 months

I feel guilty about not noting Evie's milestones. She's learning so much and changes daily, it's hard to remember all the new things she's in to!

Favorite books:
Elmo's twinkle, twinkle (see video below of her favorite line from the song).She has a favorite page in the book of a raccoon looking out the window at a star. That is the only page she wants to see currently.
Twinkle Twinkle

Goodnight Moon- she loves the pages with the kittens and says meow every time she sees the kittens.
Bedtime kiss for little fish- I ask where the little red fish is, she answers and points "there e' is".

Numbers and letters:
She likes to count and it usually goes in this order: 2, 5, 2. She really likes 2.

Food:
This girl will eat just about anything. Not afraid of spicy foods like her brother. Lately she's been spitting her food out, but then usually puts it right back in. It's gross and weird, but as long as she's eating it. She was just introduced to, and loves, Popeye's mash potatoes. Since our ground cherries aren't growing any longer, she's switched to cherry tomatoes instead. I can't stop her from picking them and popping them in her mouth! Good thing we grow organically! Once again, Sullivan, wouldn't eat a cherry tomato raw if i paid him i don't think. He will eat ground cherries, so maybe one day. Evie typically eats dinner and then after she's been bathed and is almost ready for bed, she wants second dinner from our plates.

She's hilarious

What she's saying:
winkle winkle, up above upppa above
hut (hug)
shower
towel
apple
Bailey
Sammy (her best buddy at school)
Some form of Sullivan
Come own  (momma, bailey, daddy, etc)
I want (juice, bar, nanna, bow, etc)
(Body parts and animals sounds are big right now)

Evie is a climber. I never had to deal with that with Sullivan, but she can climb to the top of her changing table, climbs the outside of her crib, climbs on any furniture she can...no fear. she has also figured out how to open most of the doors in our house, so we must be much more vigilant these days. Although she can now open doors, she actually loves to close them. She obviously gets that from her ocd daddy.

She LOVES to buckle things, have me unbuckle, and then buckle again. Entertains her for quite a while, so it's great when I need to work. She also loves to put on socks...any socks any where. Case and point:

Sullivan has been doing pretty well in school. We have more green and yellow days than red, so I'll take it. I must say, he's learned a lot of negative things from his peers. The armpit fart noises and redneck speak are getting on my nerves and not exactly restoring my faith in this public school. I'm hoping his confidence will eventually help him quit copying bad role models. Just one more thing for me to worry about. His soccer season has just ended, on time I might add. He enjoyed it and now wants to play baseball...not sure I have another sport in me at the moment. We'll see.

These two really love each other most of the time:

19 months

*old  post I never published!

I've wanted to post an update for so long, but never seem to find the time to make it a priority. I read Jennifer's blog every day and am always amazed at how faithfully she blogs. You accomplish so much more in a day than I do!

What have we been up to in the last 5 months??? Well, Sullivan finished Willie Price 4K. As usual, I was an emotional, sentimental mess. I remember when Sullivan was first born we were talking about which school district we live in, and at the time, we said, "we have 5 years to figure out if we don't think this is the right school district for us." Queue...5 years later and we are starting kindergarten NEXT WEEK. We are all a little nervous about the transition, so sends some positive vibes our way next Thursday! Daniel and I both attended private schools (until Jr. high for me, until college for daniel), so the difference in school size alone is a bit intimidating. I hear many positive things about both public schools in this area, so I'm sure it will all be just fine.  Sullivan is doing wonderfully reading and frequently reads books to US at night. His confidence has grown in this area, and I'm so thankful. He's grown and matured in many ways and we are really in a good place.

Evie just picked out her first official school nap mat yesterday. She found the one she liked and immediately put the strap over her head and took off. She's moving up to the next class on Monday! She's been in a clingy phase lately- wants momma in sight at all times. She talks up a storm, although we still don't understand a lot of it. In the car each morning, she'll say "Mommi, Daddi...." and then a long stream of gibberish. She'll copy just about anything you say, so we've got to be careful with that. She's very in to making all the animal sounds (cows, cats, dogs, sheep, ducks, birds, chickens) and pointing out all of her body parts (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, head, hair, belly button, toes, knees, and boo boos). She is still nursing at bedtime and early morning, but that is definitely starting to dwindle. I'm very sentimental about that too, but I think this gradual transition has been nice for us both. I will be very sad to see the end of my "baby days", but I know there are many wonderful "kid days" ahead. She loves to read books, love on her babies, and buckle and unbuckle anything she can get her hands on!

We've been on two big family vacations this summer. We took a reunion trip to Nantahala and our usual beach trip. It was interesting camping with both kids for the first half of the trip. It rained every time we needed to prepare or eat, but the weather was cool, so that was a blessing. The kids had a wonderful time playing in the water and the dirt, picnicking and hiking around with us. Our beach trip was much more relaxing, even with the kids in tow. They both loved the sand and water and were happy most of the time. Lesson learned- don't take tired kids out to dinner.

13 and 14 months

My sweet Evie has made huge strides over the last two months! She is now consistenly sleeping through the night. There have been a few times where she has slept from 7 pm until close to 10 am!!!! Sullivan HAS NEVER done anything close to that. She goes to bed awake most nights and puts herself to sleep with no tears. We'll read books, nurse for a minute or two, then she'll reach for her crib and "lay down with her baby". 

As mentioned above, we are still nursing some. Today she went to school with only one bottle of breastmilk and will get milk in a cup the rest of the day. We'll see how it goes! We've been slowly taking out the bottles and moving to cow's milk in a cup...we'll see how we manage when it's time to get rid of that naptime bottle. At home, she'll usually nurse when she wakes up and then again at bedtime. On the weekends she wants to nurse at naptime as well. She definitely gets distracted and doesn't nurse long at night, so I do think she's close to weaning herself.  

Evie has been eating lots of great big people food. She'll try just about anything if I'm feeding her from my plate and has probably eaten more variety of whole pieces of vegetables then her brother has his whole life. Sullivan will eat raw carrot sticks and not much else. She's loving trying to feed herself with a spoon or fork. She hates her highchair and eats half of most of her meals in my lap or on the ground. Sitting her next to her brother is a positive influence and how she first started actually drinking cow's milk. She saw her brother and so I gave her an identical cup with milk and voila!

Her favorite toys are her baby dolls and her books. She loves All of Baby Nose to Toes and Old MacDonald. She'll say the "Me, I do" line from the first and "E-ya, E-ya" for the second. She's getting good at mimicking things we say. When she's not saying things we recognize, she's babbling away about something or "reading" her books.  She LOVES to give hugs! She'll just run up to you and give you the biggest hug, and I love it!

On March 2nd, Evie finally got tubes in her ears. Everything went well. She's got her first cold since then, so we'll see if those tubes start draining!

Life is very busy with work, school, soccer, all our extras, but things are going well. We repainted our kitchen/laundry/hallway and it looks SOOOO much better. Flat paint with kids does not work, so I'm happy to have a new color and paint that can be washed! We really want to do the living/dining room, but the ceilings are so tall I'm not sure when we'll be able to tackle that. We have plans for a new veggie garden this year in a different spot that should be easier to get to and to water. Just have to have a weekend of good weather to get it going. I also need to locate some good dirt and go beg for some chicken poop. :)

Sullivan has been doing very well with soccer, although we need to work on sportsmanship a little. He goes in to warrior mode and wants to boo the other team and stuff. Not cool. His new thing is to run to protect the goal whenever the teams start heading that way. He loves to control the game. Sullivan is doing well with his reading. It's hard to convince him to read to us, but  he does so great when he finally does. This year has been so much better for him, and I certainly hope next year is good too. He has been registered for KINDERGARTEN! How is that even possible? He's very in to typical boy potty humor. It's next to impossible to get him to stay in his chair at dinner. he wants to constantly get up, check on Evie, run around, talk, talk, talk. He's usually the first to start dinner and the last to finish! He is so full of energy! I'm ready for Spring weather so we can all get outside and run around!

Evie's 1st Birthday!

Way behind, I know.

Oh, my sweet Evie. How has a year passed so quickly? I still like to mentally walk through everything we did the day you were born. Breakfast at BBB (well, technically in the car because they lost our order), haircut for Sullivan at La Rousse, doctor's appointment in Tupelo, our decision to go ahead and break my water at the hospital to get things going, lunch at Steele's in Tupelo (fried catfish), arriving at a packed hospital and waiting for hours in triage for a delivery room, watching the clock after breaking my water to make sure labor was well under way before my doctor came to check on me, watching tree house masters during most of labor, crazy labor pains and tons of pressure in my rectum area, Enchanted on the tv during delivery, nurses on the phone telling the doctor one more push and I'd be done, everyone scrambling to set up/catch the baby while I was pushing those last few times, you, beautiful you, in my arms and on my chest. I can still feel the flood of relief, and love, and emotion at finally having you in my arms. My sweet Evie. You are such a blessing to me and our family and this world. May you never doubt that.

We spent Evie's first Christmas at home, but drove the day after Christmas down to the Coast. Her Nanna hosted a lunch birthday party at her home, and it was wonderful! Evie DID NOT smash her cake and wanted pretty much nothing to do with it. I guess I should have gotten chocolate, because she inhaled an andes mint chocolate cookie half that Santa left on Christmas.

At 12 months, Evie is blowing kisses with the back of her hand and lots of sound affects! MmmmWahhh!!! She received 2 baby dolls and a doll stroller for Christmas, and she loves to carry her babies around and hug them and push them in the stroller. She also likes to try out their pacifiers! She is all about a ball these days and wants someone to roll a ball back and forth with her. She has started doing what Sullivan calls "the adorable thing" which is basically a hug. She comes and lays her head on your leg, the dog, the cat, the baby doll, the whatever! It really is adorable, and even more so when Sullivan calls out, "Mom, she's doing the adorable thing again!". She also loves to read books at night, and will often just sit on the floor and read/jibber jabber to herself as she flips the pages. Her current favorites are Pout Pout Fish, Bedtime Kiss for Little Fish, Barnyard Buddies, or any of the books that have different textures to feel.

Food is touch and go. Some days she likes baby food, some days she shakes her head no. She absolutely, DOES NOT like milk. I have tried different percentage cow's milks, unsweetened almond milk, sweetened almond milk, formula, even chocolate milk. Nada. I never in a million years imagined the joy and accomplishment of breastfeeding would be so hard for HER to quit. I took for granted that she would just like milk and switch with no problems. HA! So, I'm still pumping during the day for her and nursing at night. This is my last go round, so trying to savor it anyway.

Evie can definitely understand so much of what we say to her now. She will retrieve items you ask her for and respond to questions with a shake of the head when appropriate. She's so happy most of the time (except when fighting new teeth or ears), and will typically play happily where ever we are. She loves to hang in our bathroom while we get ready and turn on (and off, and on, and off, and on) the water in our bathtub.

She loves her brother so much. She calls for him first thing in the morning, and gets to incredibly excited whenever he walks in the room. He is so protective of her, and typically, very inclusive. I think he enjoys having someone to boss around, and she sits patiently and enjoys it.